View Features of Latest Argentan lace Fashion

lace patterned openwork fabric made by plaiting, knotting, looping, or twisting. The finest lace is made from linen thread. Handmade laces include needlepoint and bobbin lace, tatting, crochet work , and some fabrics made by netting and darning.

Varieties of Lace

Laces, often named for their location of origination, are of many types. Valenciennes is a fine, diamond-meshed lace much used for trimmings and ruffles. Mechlin is of similar type, but filmier; torchon is a simple, loose lace, made and used by peasants all over Europe; Honiton, one of the fine English laces, has a net foundation with appliqués of delicate, handmade braid. Brussels is a rich lace of several varieties. Duchesse has exquisite patterns with much raised work. Maltese is coarse and heavy, usually made of silk. Chantilly is a delicate mesh with ornate patterns, originally made of the yellowish undyed. 

Alençon Lace

But Beware Cheap Imitations …

You’ll find plenty of suppliers offering what they claim to be “Alençon Lace” and wedding gowns supposedly trimmed in Alençon lace.

With very few exceptions, most of this is NOT genuine Alençon lace.  It often comes from China and is a cheap, machine made imitation that bears only a superficial resemblance to the real thing.  When it is available to order by the yard, or the dresses cost just a few hundred dollars, this gives the game away – new Alençon lace costs several hundred dollars per square inch!

Ouch – Why is real Alençon lace so expensive? Mainly because it takes eight years of training to master the Point Alençon technique and 25 hours of labour to produce a finished piece of Alençon lace the size of a French postage stamp (2.5cm by 2cm, less than a square inch).  The end result is stunning and can’t be matched by any machine made lace.

History of Alençon Lace

Alençon lace, known as “the Queen of laces and a lace for Queens“,  is the most elaborate needle-point lace ever produced in France.  It traces its origins to 1665, when Louis XIV determined to improve the quality of French lace in order to keep in the country the enormous sums then being spent on Italian and Flemish laces by members of his court.

Venetian lace makers were brought in to train the French lace-makers of Alençon in Normandy, who were already skilled in making cut-thread lace.  The number of workers rapidly grew and by 1875 nearly eight thousand workers in Alencon and surrounding towns (Sees, Argentan, Falaise, Mamers and Beaumont) were engaged in lace making.  Until c. 1675 the new French lace strongly resembled Spanish and Venetian points and was called “Point de France“.  But around that time the lace-makers of Alençon adopted a mesh backing technique and invented a new and even more delicate stitch,  a distinctive style leading to the “Point Alençon” soubriquet.

Alençon Lace

Enormous prices were paid for Alençon lace, which could only be afforded by the aristocracy.  Despite this, not only were articles of clothing trimmed with it, but it was used as a trimming for luxurious bedclothes, upholstery, valances and bed spreads.  Altars in the churches were hung with it, surplices of the priests trimmed with it, and the king gave away to his courtiers cravats, ruffles and complete items of clothing. At the time of the French Revolution in 1794 the value of Alençon lace was a staggering 12,000,000 livres (pounds) per annum.  The average wage at this time was only 3 sous (shillings) per day, making the value of the lace equivalent to 80 million days’ labour.

During the Revolution many of the Alençon lace factory workers were killed or fled France on account of their connection with the aristocracy.  Nevertheless, the skill survived and even had a renaissance when in 1810 the Emperor Napoleon I gave Marie Louise bed linen decorated with finest Alençon lace on the occasion of their marriage.

The Duchess  of Angoulême also tried to revive the industry, but by 1830 there were only two or three hundred Alençon lace-workers still employed.  Alençon lace was shown at the Great Exhibition of 1851 in the Crystal Palace of London where it was greatly admired, and in 1856 a large commission was placed to mark the birth of the Prince Imperial.  In 1859 the most expensive single work ever executed at Alençon was exhibited – a dress valued at 200,000 francs purchased by the Emperor Napoleon III for the Empress.  Despite this, the Alençon lace factory fell into terminal decline towards the end of the 19th century as cheaper machine-made lace became available and tastes in fashion changed.

Alençon Lace Technique

The technique of point Alençon is a rare technique of needle lace-making.  Alençon needle lace is unusual because of the high level of craftsmanship required and the very long time that it takes to produce (seven hours per square centimeter).

Its process comprises a number of successive stages: drawing and pricking of the design on parchment, creating the outline of the design and the background netting, then the stitching of the patterns, shading with filling stitches, decorating with designs, and embroidering to create relief. Then the lace is removed from the parchment with a razor blade, trimmed and, finally, the filling stitches are polished with a lobster claw.

Every Alençon lace-maker knows how to complete all the stages of the process – knowledge that can only be learned through a practical apprenticeship. To fully master Alençon needle lace-making requires seven to ten years of training. The learning method is exclusively based on oral transmission and practical teaching. 

Lace History and Fashion

I took this book out of the public library after signing up with the Stitchin' Fingers Lace Makers group. It was written by Anne Kraatz and published in France by Editions Adam Biro in 1988. Pat Earnshaw translated the book into English in 1989. While I posted this review on my book blog earlier in the month, it really belongs here. So here it is.

Lace is an oversized hard cover book that would make a lovely coffee table book. Its 190 pages are divided by century. Beginning with the Sixteenth Century's openwork (removing threads from woven cloth and covering with buttonhole stitches), the origins and development of the lace industry are discussed. There are fabulous photos of the great laces of this era along with a discussion of their characteristics. During the Sixteenth Century, needle laces such as punto tagliato, reticella and punto in aria were common, as were bobbin laces and filet. Pattern books began to be printed but primarily without instructions because it was assumed that women knew how to use a needle. The main way lace was worn was as a large raised collar and as on the sleeves of dresses.

The laces of the Seventeenth Century became more masculine as men began to wear it also. During this era several Venetian laces came into prominance. They were point plat, gros point, rose point, point de neige and point de France. Bobbin laces such as Genoa, Flanders/Angleterre and Milan were prominant too.Again, there are detailed photographs of vintage laces from this era as well as a discussion of each type of lace. Note that after 1620 the ruff was no longer worn and was replaced with large flat collars turned down over the shoulders. Both men and women wore this style of fashion. Men wore deep cuffs of lace that concealed half of the hand.

In the Eighteenth Century, femininity prevailed again in the industry. Alencon, argentan and sedan needle laces were popular as were bobbin laces like Brussels, Bruges, Bunche, Valenciennes, Mechlin, Lille and Blonde. More lace was needed in apparel because it began to be gathered, pleated and ruffled. Women for the first time began to wear more lace than men. Their headpieces were entirely made of lace and white lace was used to tone down the loud colors of their dresses.

The Nineteenth Century brought us Burano and point de gaze needle laces, while alencon, argentan remained in vogue. New forms of bobbin lace were created. Brussels applique, duchesse, cluny, Chantilly and Bayeux came into prominence and mechlin, binche, and Lille remained popular. A new type of lace was invented in this century - machine lace. At first only silk and cotton were made. In 1883 a new technique was invented in Germany: chemical lace. After the motifs were machine embroidered in cotton thread on woven silk. Then the silk was burned with caustic acid or chlorine, which caused the motifs to be released from their supports. Regarding the fashions of the time, after the French Revolution lace fell out of favor. When Napoleon came to power he resurrected the industry by demanding that Imperial protocol required the wearing of lace by both sexes. It was during this era that the white lace wedding gown and veil were introduced.

The Twentieth Century is the final installment in the book. Because lace was used to an excess in earlier times, people turned away from it. In addition, women began to work outside the home and had no time to make lace. Lace, however, was resurrected in feminine underwear and in the 1970s began to be seen in haute couture. However, the demand for quality was scarce as machine made lace prevailed.

All in all, there are just under 200 photographs of which half are in color. Lace is a scholarly book with plenty of eye candy for the lace maker. It should be in every serious lace maker's home library.